Booking.com was fined 1.3 billion rubles in Russia

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS) fined the administration of the popular online hotel booking service Booking.com 1.3 billion rubles for abusing its dominant market position.

In December 2020, the FAS Russia completed the consideration of the antitrust case against Booking.com, and until now the company has not complied with the order to eliminate violations of the antimonopoly legislation of Russia.

The case was at one time initiated in response to the appeal of the All-Russian public organization of small and medium-sized businesses in Support of Russia.

During the investigation, the FAS found that the company imposed on hotels, hotels, and hostels the terms of an agreement on the need to provide and maintain parity of prices and rooms, as well as the terms of interaction with closed users groups. For hotels, this meant that they could not price their services in other sales channels lower than on the Booking.com aggregator.